News and Events

Sage 50 Intelligent Reporting is wiithdrawn

October 2008
Sage unexpectedly announced this week that it was withdrawing its Excel-based management reporting package, Sage 50 Intelligent Reporting.

"We've become aware of some compatibility issues between Sage 50 Intelligent Reporting and other software," Ford wrote. "As it's just not practical for us to solve these issues or develop the software further in its current form, we've taken the difficult decision to withdraw Sage 50 Intelligent Reporting from sale from 24 September 2008 and to halt development of the new version of this software" says Sage Accountants Division managing director Greg Ford.

Ford put a positive spin on the decision, saying it would allow Sage "to focus our attention on developing core reporting functionality across all the full range of Sage 50 applications".

Sage 50 Intelligent Reporting has become yet another casualty of the company's growth-through-acquisition strategy. Sage bought the original developer IntelligentApps in 2004 and used its business intelligence technology to create Excel-based reporting for its mid-range and enterprise accounting applications before releasing the Line 50-compatible Intelligent Reporting module in 2006.

Sage's inability to make headway with what seemed like a winning product raises some concern about whether the market is diminishing for Excel-based reporting and business intelligence tools. All of this seems to point to the fact that business people and accountants don't want tools but rather simple to generate ready-formatted management reports out of the box.